Do Immigrants Have a Statutory Right to Apply for Asylum in U.S.?

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear another immigration case. This case is about the ability of the U.S. government to limit asylum claims at the southern border, and it threatens to have “massive implications for the government’s ability” to do so. Katelynn Richardson reported the following in her article published at The Daily Signal. 

The justices agreed Monday to weigh whether migrants who show up on the Mexican side of the border must be allowed to apply for asylum.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, an alien who “arrives in the United States” can apply for asylum. The 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that even migrants who are stopped on the Mexican side of the border qualify as arriving in the U.S.

That interpretation of the law “deprives the Executive Branch of a critical tool for addressing border surges and for preventing overcrowding at ports of entry along the border,” the administration argued in its July petition.

“Before this litigation, border officials had repeatedly addressed migrant surges by standing at the border and preventing aliens without valid travel documents from entering,” Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in the petition. “The decision below declares that practice  unlawful, on the theory that aliens stopped on the Mexican side of the border have a statutory right to apply for asylum in the United States and to be inspected by federal immigration officers.”

Several members of Congress wrote in an amicus brief that the 9^th Circuit “usurped the policymaking authority of the political branches.”

“The Nineth Circuit’s decision below effectively seized that exclusively political power by creating an entitlement to seek asylum for potentially millions of aliens whom Congress never authorized such relief,” they argued.

The United States is a sovereign nation that has the right and authority to determine who enters America. If immigrants have a statutory right to apply for asylum in the U.S., this means that the United States does not have authority over who enters the nation. This is common sense to me.

Besides, only Mexicans should be applying for asylum at America’s southern border because the law states that they have to apply for asylum at the first country. Anyone who comes through Mexico should apply for asylum in Mexico. I wonder how the Supreme Court will rule on this case.